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PORTRAITS OP COLUMBUS 

by 

JAMES DAVIE BUTLER 

In Lippincott's Magazine 
March 1883. 



1883.] 



THE FIDDLER OF BATISCAN. 



263 



life !" he said. " You never can. The 
sum of a man's suffering does not equal 
an hour of the torture that the mind 
of a woman such as this one can in- 
flict upon herself. Here is the trou- 
ble. The right side is fairly crushed. 
How under heaven did she ever get up 
here?" 

Farrington looked at her, winced, 
and turned away : " Will you call some 
of the people? I must go out." 

He went through the hall, oUt into 
the night. Mrs. West saw him go, and 
fell back in her chair, quivering. 

The requirements of her imagination 
were momentarily satisfied, for she felt 
that the mystery of the fiddler of 
Batiscan had culminated in storm and 
tragedy. 

Almost a year had passed since the 
wreck on St. Ignace. 

Again the St. Lawrence steamer neared 
the wharf at Batiscan. 

Dr. and Mrs. West leaned over the 
side-rail. Beside them stood Farrington 
and a handsome young woman with a 
slightly scornful upper lip. 

Mrs. West had for some time been- 
talking to this young woman in a rapid 
undertone. She had timed her remarks 
so nicely that as the first rope was cast 
to the shore she concluded, " I suppose, 
Fileanor, that Ned, and Paul too, would 
be indignant with me for telling you. 
But it was all so satisfactorily dreadful, 
and it is before me so vividly to-night, 
that I had to talk about it. And I told 
Paul, from the first, that she was ab- 
normally depraved." 

Eleanor had not interrupted or com- 
mented on her sister's dramatic recital. 
Now she said clearly, "Ned told me be- 



fore I married him, all, — all. I said 
then that my sympathy wuis with her. 
I say so now. How can you or I re- 
alize her temptations or estimate her 
suffering?" 

Close beside the wharf lay the Bonne 
Marie, her rigging ablaze with lights, 
and flags flying from every spar. 

All Batiscan was on the wharf, for it 
was known that Monsieur le Capitaine 
was coming with, his wife en route to 
St. Ignace. /' 

Trembling t^Yough the night air came 
the notes of ayviolin ; louder rose a lusty 
chorus, — i 

i 



" Vi/c 



la belle ! Vive la belle ! 
a Ics beaux yeux." 



Loudest of all, the clang of the gong, 
and the cry, — 

" Batiscan ! Batiscan ! Stop half an 
hour at Batiscan." 

^hen the steamer swung off, only Dr. 
an|3 Mrs. West stood on the deck. 
.Mrs. West said pensively, "Life has 
no interest now that Eleanor has a hus- 
band. She is lovely, but just a little 
queer. Do you think everything will 
be all right ?" 

" The monotony of life, my dear," 
said West, " would be unendurable if, in 
your loose phraseology, ' everything ever 
were all right.' I think, though, that as 
a match-maker you are unrivalled. I 
am sure that, out of sympathy for my 
brother man, I hope you are alone of 
your kind. I think, too, that Eleanor, 
with what you call her ' <][ueerness,' — I 
call it ' intellectual balance,' — is just the 
woman to love and to hold our Fiddler 
of Batiscan." 

Annie Robertson Macparlane. 



264 



PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. 



[March, 



Tc^ 



ec T>.., 



PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. 



\ ITHEN Jefferson was the American 
VV minister in Paris, about 1784, he 
engaged an artist to make the best copy 
possible of what passed for the most au- 
thentic Hkeness of Cokimbus in existence, 
the Medici portrait in Fkirence. This 
painting was with Jefferson during his 
Presidency, and he writes about it as one 
of his chief jewels at Monticello in 1814. 
In his drawing-room there it hung the 
second among four portraits on the left 
as one entered. If Virginia had had 
any Historical Society in his time,* he 
would, no doubt, have delighted to en- 
shrine his pictorial memorial within its 
walls, deeming it, as he wrote, " a matter 
even of some public concern that our 
country should not be without the por- 
trait of its discoverer." 

What has become of this Jeffersonian 
relic ? is a question we naturally ask. I 
have corresponded regarding it with Mr. 
Lossing, who has illustrated so many of 
our worthies, and with Mr. Parton, the 
latest biographer of Jefferson. Neither 
of them could give me any inkling of 
its fate. I next wrote to Miss Sarah 
N. Randolph, a grand-daughter of Jef- 
ferson, and author of a volume on his 
" Domestic Life." 

In her answer were these words: " The 
Columbus and other portraits, having 
been reserved at the sale of Mr. Jeffer- 
son's effects, were sent to Boston, where 
it was supposed there would be a better 
chance of selling them to advantage. 
They were intrusted to Mr. Coolidge, 
who married my aunt. They are both 
now dead, and I wrote to their daughter, 
telling her of your desire to know about 
the Columbus. She writes that she 
knows nothing of it, and would not know 
that such a picture had been at Monti- 
cello, but for the fact that it is men- 
tioned in my book." " I have often," 
Miss Randolph continued, " wished to 

* The Virginia Historical Society was not 
founded until five years after Jefferson's death, 
or in 1831. 



trace this picture up, but suppose there 
is now no hope of doing so. My uncle 
has been dead only three years, and a 
single word from him would have told 
all." The word "Boston" in Miss Ran- 
.dolph's letter put me on the track. Had 
I been in that city I would have gone at 
once to the building (if the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society. But I was a 
thousand miles away ; and so I scruti- 
nized the publications of the society till I 
came to a notice of a portrait of Colum- 
bus presented by Israel Thorndike, and 
I observed that the donor in his letter 
of presentation (November 26, 1835) de- 
scribed it as "a copy from an original in 
the gallery of Medicis \^sic\ at Florence, 
for Thomas Jefferson." It was a pleas- 
ure to ascertain that the picture hangs 
in the hall of that society which has 
done most to elucidate the annals of the 
country over which Jefferson presided, 
and of the continent which Columbus 
revealed. 

In 1814 Mr. Delaplaine was publish- 
ing in Philadelphia his " Repository of 
Distinguished Americans." He made 
strenuous efforts to obtain for his fron- 
tispiece a drawing from the Jeffersonian 
portrait. Failing in this endeavor, he 
was forced to have recourse to a paint- 
ing by Macella, copied from some fancy 
portrait cased in plate-armor and frilled 
ruffs, with features as divergent as the 
costume from the genuine type. 

The oldest portrait of Columbus of 
which I have discovered any trace in 
the United States now hangs in the New 
York Senate-Chamber at Albany. It 
was presented to the State in 1784 by 
Mrs. Maria Farmer, a grand-daughter of 
Jacob Leisler, Governor of New York 
in 1689. According to her statement, 
the painting had already been in her 
family for a hundred and fifty years. 
It may, then, have been brought from 
Europe more than two centuries ago. 
In one corner it bears the inscription 
"Anno 1592. Act. 23." This legend 



1883.] 



PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. 



265 



luay indicate the year in which the copy 
was taken, and the age of the copyist. 

The so-called likenesses of Columbus 
are mostly fancy sketches. The great 
navigator, as represent ed at Madrid in 
the palace of the Duke of Berwick- 
Alba, is seated on a tlu-one and arrayed 
in high-colored silks and embroidery. 
'I'his painting is said to be a copy from 
a mythical likeness in Havana, which 
has been often sought for, but always in 
vain. It is the original of the largest 
known engraving, which bears this in- 
scription : " The original was painted 
in America by Van Loo." {El cuadro 
original fue pintado en America por 
Van Loo.) When was Van Loo in 
America? The gods, one would think, 
must annihilate both time and space to 
make the owner of such a sham happy. 
Yet a copy of this engraving was highly 
prized by the late iMr. Lenox, and now 
adorns his library in the New York 
Central Park, lie supposed that the 
original was painted in the lifetime of 
Columbus. In the Cuban Consistorial 
Hall, at Havana, Columbus appears 
dressed as a familiar of the Inquisition. 
In one likeness he resembles an effemi- 
nate Narcissus ; in many others the cos- 
tume and arrangement of hair are in a 
style unknown to his century, while his 
lineaments are treated with no less license 
than his vestments. Seeing Columbus 
thus transformed,- — (;>r rather deformed, 
— we are reminded of personal carica- 
tures in Punchy and of an Innocent 
Abroad asking, " Is he dead ?" or of a 
heathen idol baptized with the name of 
a saint, so that what was carved for 
Jupiter becomes Jew Peter. 

More than one can\'as passing for a 
portrait of Columbus is a palimpsest ; that 
is, it shows traces of a former name 
having been erased in order that the 
word Columbus might be inscribed. 

About thirty years ago, Mr. Barton, a 
member of the American Antiquarian 
Society in Worcester, Massachusetts, 
seeing in the picture-gallery at Naples 
a portrait by Parmigiano which was 
called Columbus, obtained a copy of 
it painted by an Italian artist named 
Scardino, and gave it to the society for 

Vol. V.N. S.- 1 8 



hanging in its hall. Even in the view 
of its donor, this painting was only an 
ideal likeness of Columbus. According 
to Professor C. E. Norton, of Cambridge, 
"it is no longer held by any competent 
critic to be an authentic likeness." The 
disproof of its pretensions by the Span- 
ish investigator and painter Carderera 
is in substance as follows : " We now 
come to notice the famous portrait which 
hangs in the lioyal Museo Borhonico at 
Naples, attributed to the elegant pencil 
of Parmegianino. As this celebrated 
painting has of late misled very respect- 
able persons, and has been reproduced in 
engravings at Naples, as well as in France 
and England,* it seems necessary to sub- 
ject it to a careful analysis. Bechi, who 
has described this beautiful work, con- 
fesses that the eminent artist had to 
paint the portrait from imagination. M. 
Jomard, of the French National Li- 
brary, is of the same opinion, and yet 
advised the Genoese nobles commissioned 
to raise a statue of the great man that 
their artists shoidd inspire themselves 
at this notable painting. We must in 
many points differ from the opinions of 
the two distinguished persons we have 
just mentioned. Having carefully ex- 
amined the portrait in Naples, we have 
come to doubt wliether the Parmesan 
artist intended it to be a likeness of 
Columbus at all. There is scarcely any 
point of resemblance between the authen- 
tic [word-?] portraits of the admiral, 
which so clearly reveal the frank man- 
ner, and a certain courtier-like delicacy 
and reserve which appear in the Nea- 
politan canvas. 

" Still more noticeable is the contrast 
between the garb and the austere aspect 
of our hero, and the exquisite and effem- 
inate decorations of a personage whose 
physiognomy, very long and lean, difi"ers 
most widely from the oval and strongly- 
marked face of the admiral, — an aspect 
noble, clear, and lit up by genius. 
Neither the hair which adorns the tem- 

■••■■" This Neapolitan likeness appeared in Pres- 
cott's " Ferdinand and Isabella." It has just 
been engraved by George E. Ferine ex))ressly 
for the Ain<;r!<'(tn Ec/ectic Mcn/aziiit;. It was 
an odd blunder to make a misnomer the subject 
of so fine an engraving. 



266 



PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. 



[Mabch, 



pies of the Neapolitan figure with sym- 
metrical and elegant locks, nor the whis- 
kers and long beard, nor the curls 
smoothly arranged, were seen, save in 
rarest exceptions, in the age of Ferdinand 
ind Isabella, either in Spain or in Italy 
or in other civilized regions of Europe ; 
much less up to the first years of Charles 
V. could any one meet with a slashed 
< German red cap with plume and gold 
.studs. The same may be said concern- 
ing other parts of the attire, — as the 
silk sleeves hooped by fillets, lace about 
the hands, gloves, a finger-ring, and 
other refinements which characterize a 
finished gallant of the sixteenth century. 
Tt may be said that the medal which in 
the Neapolitan portrait adorns the cap 
bears a ship which is passing beyond 
the Pillars of Hercules. Admit that it 
does, may it not be only one of those 
devices then so much in vogue, and con- 
cerning which Giovio, Iluscelli, Capac- 
cio, and other ingenious Italians wrote so 
many volumes ? The vice-king of Cata- 
lonia bore as a device the sea-compass ; 
Isabel of Correggio, two anchors in the 
sea. Stephen Colonna had two cohimns 
painted in the deep s^ea, with a band 
connecting them, and inscribed. His 
svffulta. We could cite a hundred 
examples of picture - restorers destroy- 
ing accessories and legends, as well as 
injuriously cleansing and retouching. 
Who can satisfy us that the Neapolitan 
portrait has not sufi"ered a similar degra- 
dation ?" 

On the whole, Carderera decides that 
Parmigiano's painting had no reference 
to Columbus, but was more probably 
a likeness of one Giberto de Sassuolo. 
It may be added that when Parmigiano 
had painted a Venus and then received 
a commission for a Virgin Mary, he 
passed off his queen of beauty, with some 
trifling changes, for tlie queen of saints. 
Nor were Venus and the Virgin more 
unlike each other than was his finical 
courtier to any fair setting forth of Co- 
lumbus. 

Equally untrustworthy has the por- 
trait owned by the Duke of Veragua, a 
descendant of the great admiral, now 
been proved. Regarding this work, an 



eminent Spanish artist says,* " Its date 
cannot be earlier than the end of the 
seventeenth century ; it has whiskers and 
rufiles, which were unknown for more 
than one generation after Columbus. 
Nothing more than a copy of this mod- 
ern fancy is to be seen in the Archives 
of the Indies at Seville, or in the cele- 
brated engraving published by Muiios." 
A copy of the Veragua portrait was pre- 
sented in 1818 to the Pennsylvania 
Academy of Arts by R. W. Meade. In 
the light of subsequent criticism it turn^ 
out a less valuable benefaction than was. 
supposed alike by the donor and by the 
receivers. 

No less unsatisfactory is the bust in 
possession of the New York Historical 
Society. It is a fac-simile of an ideal 
in the Protomotica of the Capitoline 
Museum at Rome. 

In view of such " counterfeit present- 
ments" that were counterfeits indeed, 
and dissatisfied with Peschiera's ideal 
bust of 1821 in (ienoa, the authorities 
of that city, wishing to erect a worthy 
monument of its greatest son, sought 
all through the world for his most au- 
thentic likeness, in order to show forth 
in its chief place of concourse the man 
himself, and not a mockery of him. 
The results of this research are worthy 
our notice. 

The Madrid Historical Society ad- 
vised the Genoese to model their statue, 
not according to any likeness in Spain, as 
national pride might have dictated, but 
by the Florentine painting from which 
Jefferson's copy was made, as well as ac- 
cording to an ancient wood-cut and an 
engraving which had been derived from 
the same source with that painting. 
• What was that source? It was the mu- 
seum of Paolo Giovio, on the site of 
Pliny's villa, by the Lake of Como. 
About the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
tury Cristofano dell' Altissimo was de- 
spatched to this museum by the Duke 
of Tuscany to copy portraits. Vasari re- 
lates that that painter completed more 
than two hundred and eighty, and that 
they were arranged in the Florentine 
Museum. They hang there to this day : 

* Carderoia, pp. 8-22. 



1883.] 



PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. 



267 



— Columbus is No. 'J!)?. But whether 
the lace of" Cokimbus was among those 
painted by Cristofani) cannot be proved 
from Bohn's edition of Vasari, nor by 
any edition in any language in the Bos- 
ton Athenasum or I'ublic Library, for I 
have had them both .searched. But all 
the names are chronicled in the Giunti 
edition of Vasari, and perhaps in that 
alone. 

Despairing for a while of discovering 
the Giunti edition of Vasari, which was 
set down in Bruiiet's Bibliography as 
■•' rare and much sought for" half a cen- 
tury ago, and so of securing the testi- 
mony of the only competent and credible 
contemporary witness known to me re- 
garding the origin of the Florentine 
Columbus, I was all the more delighted 
to gain the information I desired from 
Professor Norton, of Harvard Univer- 
sity, who wrote me as follows : " I am 
glad to say that 1 happen to have the 
Giunti edition of Vasari. The list of 
portraits in the Museo of the Duke 
Cosimo occupies three pages and part 
of a fourth. It begins with condot- 
tieri, who are followed by kings and 
emperors ; these by emperors of the 
Turks, and other heroes ; these by ' he- 
roic men,' of whom the first eight are — 
1. Alberto Duro; 2. Leonardo da Vinci; 
8. Titziano ; 4. Michel Angelo Buo- 
narroti ; 5. Amerigo Vespucci ; 6. Co- 
lombo Genovese ; 7. Ferdinando Ma- 
gellane ; 8. Ferdinando Cortese." The 
Florentine Columbus, then, is not an 
original, — though Wr. Jefferson, as was 
not surprising in his day, had fallen into 
the mistaken idea that it was. He says, 
" The Columbus was taken for me from 
the original which is in the gallery of 
Florence. I say from an original, be- 
cause it is well known that in collections 
of any note, and that of Florence is the 
first in the world, no copy is ever ad- 
mitted, and an original existing in Genoa 
would readily be obtained for a royal 
colleotion in Florence. Vasari names 
this portrait, but does not say by whom 
it was made."* 

® The name "Colombo (jcnovese" has been at 
last discovered in one other edition of Vasari, — 
the Bologna of 1647. The tinder, Judge Daly, 



The Florentine Columbus cannot have 
been painted later than 1568, when Va- 
sari's notice of it was printed. It may 
be a score of years older than that date. 
Though not an original, it is older than 
any other likeness can be proved, and 
probably older than any other claims to 
be. Its painter was sent to copy in the 
Giovian IMuseum, because there was the 
best portrait-gallery then in existence. 
Giovio had long lavished labor and lucre 
alike in forming it. 

Before 1546 tiio Giovian Museum 
had become so famous that it drew 
things of like nature to itself. In that 
year Giulio Romano bequeathed to it a 
collection of portraits which Raphael had 
had made from stanzas in the Vatican.! 
Among these were Charles VII., King 
of France, Antonio Colonna, Prince of 
Salerno, Niccolo Fortebraccio, Francesco 
Carmignuola, Cardinal Bessarion, Fran- 
cesco Spinola, and Battista da Canneto. 
As the place where works of art would 
be most carefully preserved, best shown, 
and most appreciated, that repository 
might well be considered the niche which 
such treasures were ordained to fill. Ac- 
cordingly, it is nor incredible that if any 
art-collector left no legacy to the Giovian 
reservoir his neglect was judged to be 
such a proof of insanity as to warrant 
breaking his will. 

Ticozzi has published eight volumes, 
and Bottari various notices, proving Gi- 
ovio's pains to siicure authentic contem- 
porary portraits. His letters to Duke 
Cosimo, to Doni. Aretino, Titian, and 
others, show solicitude lest some of his 
portraits were not faithful or worthy of 
faith. I He was twenty-three years old 
at the death of Columbus. He was one 
of the foremost to see the greatness of 
the discoverer. Some of his words con- 
cerning him were, " It seems that he is 
altogether worthy to be honored with a 
most splendid statue by the Genoese. "^; 

describes it as hidden away in a corner, — that is, 
" in the Appendi.K to vol. iii., signature F. f. f., 
third sheet back." 

t Vasari, vol.ii. p. 17. 

X Carderera, p. 17. 

^ "Sicut Columbus dignus videri possit qui a 
Liguribus luculentissima statua decoretur." In 
Christoph. Columbi Elogio. 



268 



PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. 



[March, 



While holding this view, and so care- 
ful regarding the accuracy of other like- 
nesses, was he neo;li":ent re2;ardino; that of 
Columbus? His museum was situated 
in a Spanish province. His agents were 
abroad in Spain, perhaps so early that 
if no portrait existed they could have 
had one painted. 

Besides, how unlikely, when other 
honors were showered upon Columbus, 
and Giovio counted him worthy of a 
statue, that no one was found to sketch 
his features, especially as he survived till 
Italian painters were common in Spain ! 
One of the portraits painted from life, 
which were secured by Giovio, was, in 
the judgment of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 
that of Mohammed TL, by Gentile Bel- 
lini. Who will believe that Giovio was 
more anxious to obtain a truthful pre- 
sentment of a Turk than of a country- 
man, — of the conqueror of an old city 
than of the discoverer of the New 
World? 

The wood-cut which has been already 
alluded to was published at Basel in 
1578 to illustrate a eulogy on Columbus 
and other celebrities, written by Giovio. 
According to its editor, Perna, that 
wood-cut was derived from a portrait in 
the Giovian Museum, which had been 
painted from life. His words are, '' I 
have at much expense employed an 
eminent artist to engrave the Giovian 
portraits painted from life^'^ and, so 
far as appears, no others than those 
painted from life. 

The wood-cuts of some other nota- 
bles in Giovio's book being known to 
be correct, it is a natural inference that 
that which represents Columbus is also 
worthy of credit. It is also asserted by 
Spanish critics that a family likeness to 
the Giovian type, as shown in the Flor- 
entine copy and in the wood-cut, is 
clear in most old and famous likenesses, 
as in the Belvedere at Vienna, the Bor- 
ghese at Rome, the AUamira, the Mal- 
pica, the Villa Franca, etc., in Spain. f 

The engravino; in which Columbus 



* " Ho mandado dibujar con mncho dispen- 
dio a un sobresaliente artista los retratos pinta- 
dos al vivo, que decoraban el Museo de Giovio." 

f Carderera, p. 24. 



holds an octant in his hand was first 
published at Cologne by Crispin de Pas. 
When critically examined, it turns out 
to be nothing but a free imitation of 
the Giovian wood-cut which came out 
in Basel twenty years before. J 

The portraitures I have last passed 
in review are the more reliable because 
they show the person of Columbus as 
we have it described by his own son, as 
well as by his contemporary Oviedo; 
that is, " face large and ruddy, cheek- 
bones rather high, nose aquiline, eyes 
light ; hair blonde in youth, but at 
thirty years already white. "§ 

In the list of Giovian portraits copied 
by Cristofano, Columbus stands between 
those of Americus and Magellan. He 
who disputes the authenticity of Colum- 
bus, if consistent, must push his scep- 
ticism further, unless the features of 
Americus and Magellan are confirmed 
by other evidence. If they are, they 
heighten the certainty that the Colum- 
bian likeness is likewise truthful. 

The Swiss wood-cut of 1,578 ante- 
dates all others, but it is poorly pre- 
served. || 

Accordingly, the 1 toman drawing by 
Capriolo, published in 159G, and the 
painting in Florence, were recommended 
by Spain to the Genoese as the best 
models in form and feature of the 
countryman whom they most delighted 
to honor. Thanks to these and per- 
haps other archetypes,^ his native city 

% Carderera, p. 18. 

ifi Neither the Florentine portrait nor the 
Giovian wood-cut, as I think, shows white hair,, 
though both represent a man more than thirty 
years old. But in all ages artists have loved tO' 
depict their subjects as young in hair as in 
heart. Besides, who knows but Columbus dyed 
his hair? 

II Boletin I., 3, 258. 

^ A letter from the United States Consul at 
Genoa states that the sculptors of the statue of 
Columbus in that city took as their model a 
drawing, furnished by the Duke of Veragua, 
from the Cancellieri portrait, which was copied 
from one found at Cuccaro in the house of a 
collateral branch of the Columbus family. Now, 
the Cuccaro likeness was long ago shown by 
Carderera to have come from the engraving by 
Capriolo, and this engraving, which dates from 
1596, to have been taken from the Florentine 
portrait or from the Giovian original. It is it- 
self followed, with slight variations, in the por- 
trait which now hangs in the Naval Museum at 



18S3.] 



PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. 



269 



in 1862 completed a monument to Co- 
lumbus which puts to shame our ridic- 
ulous figure by the Neapolitan Persico 
perched on the Capitol stops at Washing- 
ton in 1844, where he who gave us our 
continent is clad in a sort of mail not 
invented at his era, and, standing with 
tlie globe poised in his hand like a nine- 
pin ball, seems ready to bowl it through 
an alley. 

Though so many jiortraits of Colum- 
bus point to that in (liovio's Museum as 
their origin, and bear a family likeness 
in scale, attitude, and material, and the 
eyes in all look to the right, they differ 
in accessories, especiully in the costume 
and the hair, as well as in the expression, 
which ranges from sad to cheerful. 

The wood-cut and the Florentine copy 
are so divergent in dross, though the 
features are alike, that recent critics 
hold that Giovio had two likenesses. 
The costume in the wood-cut corresponds 
to what the curate of Palacios saw 
Columbus wearing in June, 1496, — 
namely, " a dress in c-ijlor and fashion 
like a Franciscan friar's, but shorter, and 
for devotion girt with the rope of a 
Cordelier."* The costume in the Gio- 
vian portrait strikes in<ni now exactly as 
the actual garb of Columbus struck the 
Spanish curate. Whih^ a life-size copy 
of it was being framed in an American 
town, every one who came into the shop 
said to the workman, " What Catholic 
priest have you here?" In the era of 
Columbus it was a popular faith that no 
one was sure of salvation unless he died 
in a religious dress. 'J''he religiosity of 
Columbus was as great as that of any 
man 

Who, to be sure of paraili-e. 

Dying put on the wecls of Dominic, 

Or in Franciscan thoim'it. to pass disguised. 

But, as a sailor's garments were then like 
a Franciscan's, some hold that Columbus 

Madrid. One copy of this last picture has been 
procured by Chief-Justice Daly for the American 
(!eogra])hical Society in New York, and another 
lias just been presented by lion. Tlannibal Ham- 
lin to Colby University in Maine. 

* "Vino el Almirantecn Caslilla en el mes de 
junio de 1496, vestido do unas ro])as de color de 
habito de San Francisco de obscrvancia, e en la 
hechura poco menos que habito, y con cordon de 
San Francisco por devocion." Cardercra, p. 19, 



chose to be so painted with allusion to 
his achievements as ;i mariner. 

The genuineness of the Giovian por- 
trait is argued from its dress being simi- 
lar to the Franciscan friar's frock. A 
portrait in such a costume, it is main- 
tained, would never have been admitted 
among those of Ainericus, Magellan, 
Cortez, and other military heroes unless 
known to be either an original or copied 
from one that was indubitably drawn 
from life. The dress also points to a 
Spanish origin, because Italian artists 
already insisted on tricking out portraits 
even of contemporaries in the robes of 
ancient Romans, as Malone improved the 
bust above Shakespeare's tomb by white; 
washing it all over. 

One point in the investigation — 
namely, what has become of the one 
or more most ancient portraits which 
adorned the museum of Giovio — has 
been strangely neglected. Carderera 
states that the collection was divided 
between the families of two Giovian 
counts, the descendants of whom still 
reside in Como. Something of it cer- 
tainly remained in 17S0, when a letter 
from Giambattista Giovio to Tiraboschi 
described its relics, which, according to 
Crowe and Cavalcaselle, continued un- 
dispersed to the very close of the eigh- 
teenth century. It is possible, then, 
that a search about Como might be re- 
warded by the discovery of a portrait 
of Columbus, which would, as being 
unique, become as famous in its line 
as the Vatican Codex is among Biblical 
manuscripts, or even as pre-eminent as 
that Codex would stand if the Alexan- 
drian and Sinai tic Codices had never 
existed. 

There was one picture brought out in 
1595 with two warts on the left cheek 
and a full-bottomed wig, by Theodore 
Bry, a Dutch engraver, who called it 
Columbus and claimed that the original 
had been executed by order of the 
Spanish monarchs when Columbus was 
about starting on his first voyage. At 
that early period, however, those sov- 
ereigns were so far from caring for his 
portrait that they sliipped him off to 
get rid of his presence, which was as 



270 



PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. 



[March, 



vexatious to them as the importunate 
widow to the unjust judge. Besides, in 
this painting the physiognomy is totally 
unHke the dehneations by the discov- 
erer's intimates. The nose, for instance, 
was flat and snub, — not aquihne. This 
mercantile speculation — for it was noth- 
ing else — is a Dutch face, and looks as 
if a Dutchman made it. It is inscribed 
Indiarum primus inventor. Its pre- 
tensions have been exploded by Navar- 
rete. 

In 1763 a portrait of Columbus, with 
those of Cortez, Lope, and Quevedo, 
was purchased by the Spanish govern- 
ment from N. Yanez,* who had brought 
it from Granada. There is no indica- 
tion that any likeness of the discoverer 
had existed at an earlier period in the 
royal picture-gallery. The Yaiiez por- 
trait was hung in the National Li- 
brary, and confessed by art critics to 
resemble closely in features that in the 
Florentine UflSzi, the oldest of known 
date, and that from which Jefi'erson's 
copy was taken. It was highly praised 
by Navarrete in his great work, which is 
a nobler monument to Columbus than 
the labor of an age in piled stones. 

But Spanish artists were long ago 
satisfied that the Yaiiez portrait had 
been tampered with by some audacious 
restorer, and they at length obtained 
permission to test it with chemicals.-}- 
From side to side of the upper margin 
of the picture there ran the legend, 
I' Christof Columbus nori \sic\ orbis 
inventor." These words were first sub- 
jected to the artists' test, and, as they 
vanished, another inscription came out 
beneath them, — namely, the words " Co- 
lumb Lygur novi orbis reptor \sic\.''' 
The variations not only proved that the 
likeness had been repainted, but that 
the second painter was inferior to the 
first, since repertor means one who finds 
by searching, which inventor does not. 

« Boletin I., No. 3, p. 267. 
t Boletin I., No. 4, p. 327. 



The testers had no hesitation about pro 
ceeding further. The flowing robe with 
a heavy fur collar, " more befitting," as 
they said, " a Muscovite than a mariner,'" 
vanished, while a simple garb — only a 
closely-fitting tunic and a mantle folded 
across the breast — rose to view. The 
eyes, nose, lower lip, facial oval, all 
assumed a new expression. The air of 
sadness vanished. Senor Cabello and 
his assistants, whr, had begun their work 
nervously, finished it with glad surprise 
when they beheld the great discoverer 
throwing ofi" his disguise and emanci- 
pated, 

As if he whom the asp 

In his inaible grasp 
Kept close aixl for ages strangled, 

Got lod^e from the hold 

Of each serpent fold, 
And exulted, disentangled, 

A copy of this resuscitated Columbus 
was procured by General Fairchild while 
minister to Spain, and has been pre- 
sented by him to the Historical Society 
of Wisconsin, which has its local habita- 
tion in that capitol where he has served 
as chief magistrate of the State longer 
than any other man. 

We may well feel the more interest 
in the portraits of Columbus, since it 
is still disputed, and perhaps doubtful 
where the ashes of the great voyager 
cow repose. It is claimed in Cuba that 
his remains were transported to that 
island in 1796, while the St. Domingans 
assert that they then with pious fniud 
delivered up only sham relics, but re- 
tained and secreted the veritable treas- 
ure.| However this may be, and though 
every bone of Columbus must turn to 
dust and the world shall have no hair 
of him for memory, thanks to GioA in 
and his artists, we may believe that ]\\> 
face, his form, his habit as he lived, still 
triumph over death. 

James Davie Butler. 

X Los Restos de Colon. Madrid, 1879. 



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